1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to the service of providing travel destination information in general, and in particular to a method and apparatus for providing travel destination information and making travel reservations.
2. State Of The Prior Art
Currently, information concerning travel destinations is typically obtained in various ways, through brochures, travelogues, videotapes, and other media which an interested person can obtain and review. If after reviewing the information one desires to make reservations to travel to a particular place, usually a separate effort must be made, such as placing a call to a travel agency, or to the resort itself, to make reservations. The Travelvision.RTM. system allows a user to interactively "tour" any number of travel destinations around the world and obtain information regarding travel and leisure offerings at a particular destination using a personal computer. If a user decides to make travel reservations after reviewing one or more travel destinations on a Travelvision.RTM. system, reservations and payment can be made on-site using the system.
Devices that employ computers for responding to choices made by the user, such as information kiosks, information display systems, and on-site systems that dispense products, are known in the art, as exemplified for instance, by U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,029 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MANUFACTURING AND VENDING SOCIAL EXPRESSION CARDS, U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,043 entitled INFORMATION KIOSK and U.S. Pat. No. 4,920,514 entitled OPERATIONAL INFORMATION DISPLAY SYSTEM. Recent articles in newspapers and magazines have further touted the advent of information kiosks, describing systems which enable a user to search job listings, get health care data, order sandwiches, locate stores that sell particular products in a mall, as well as obtain other important information. See, e.g., "The Kiosks Are Coming, The Kiosks Are Coming" Business Week, Jun. 22, 1992; "Local Firm Hopes Its Kiosks Will Be `Shopping Oracles`" The Ann Arbor News, Sep. 1, 1992. None of these systems, however, involves providing travel destination information, making travel reservations, or the problems associated with presenting for review information concerning a variety of travel destinations while combining at the same time the capability for making reservations at these travel destinations.
A predecessor to the Travelvision.RTM. system that is the subject of this application was demonstrated more than a year ago at a trade show in San Diego, Calif. This earlier system provided users with the ability to review information about a number of travel destinations, but did not have the capability for users to make travel reservations using the system. While users had some flexibility to select and review information about various different travel destinations, the making of reservations remained a separate undertaking. Thus, for this and other reasons, it was found desirable to improve that system.